It seems that this is a question that is being discussed all the time and I think the first thing we need to do is consider the other forms of art.

Music is probably one of the oldest forms of art.  A good piece of music can depress you, it can make you feel good, it can bring on sadness and make you feel happy.  Music can be a form of poetry and can have an influencing effect on you as a person.  It has been linked to many different movements through the years.  An example of this would have to be the flower power generation and the drug LSD.  The artist who tried LSD, tried to explain how it must have felt being stoned or very, very high on LSD through their music.

They would combine their music with psychedelic videos to give the impression of being high.   It could give you an incite into the minds of the artists that wrote the songs or maybe confuse the listener.

Another form of art that is as old as music has to be paintings, drawing and etchings and these have always tried to depict a place or a scene.  You might have a painting of the battle of waterloo for example where the Duke of York defeated Napoleon and  gave the British with aid of a few other countries a strong footing in Europe.

You could look at a painting and wonder what the person in the painting was thinking.  Was she happy or sad?  If she/he was sad; what caused this?  There is the phrase that a picture tells a thousand words.  Perhaps this would explain why a man would be speechless when he looked at a beautiful women; or a women looked at a man she liked and started to giggle for no logical reason what-so-ever. 

You could get a group of people in a room and get as many different interpretations of the piece of art on display.

Books:  I enjoy reading books; I build an image of the world in my head; I give the characters voices and find that a really good book is hard to put down.  Sometimes it is hard to explain why I like a certain book but not enjoy another book of the same genre.  I really like Arthur C Clarke for instance but am not so keen in Issac Asimov for example.  I personally don't really like The Lord of the Rings for example but this is one of the biggest sellers of all time.

A book can cause serious rows and can even cause a family to split up.  It can be the basis of religions and can also be the basis for governments.  Remember that Lenin wrote a series of books that was used to start Communism.  The west have their philosophical books that are used and were used to start empires.

The books of religion would intertwined with philosophy and created a hybrid like state and all this was from the imagination of a few people who wanted to make a difference; be it good or bad.

Books are a great way to get away from our mundane lives.  I could be a great fighter in the middle of a event changing battle.  I could close my eyes and imagine that I was on a spaceship near to Pluto; I could be in a room listening the some of the great men and women throughout the annuls of time.

The limit was my own imagination.  Like all forms of art; most of it doesn't actually have a real purpose, other than to entertain the person and take them somewhere else.

Imagine a book that followed real life?  Most of it would be so boring.

Movies:  The funny thing about movies it that in effect you are combining music, painting and books to get a more in-depth version of each component.  As you watched a movie, you get the moving music and the beautiful visuals and without a good story there wasn't any point watching the film in the first place.  

Just as a bad movie could cause tedium and even make you feel like your will to live was seeping out of your ears.  A good film could make you happy, sad and even make you feel very angry.  This is why in my opinion movies are considered art.  You might watch the Normandy landing and really understand what the soldiers must have felt when running up the beach, whilst being shot at by the Germans.

You might watch a scene where something sad has happened and feel such a level of empathy that you found yourself crying.  Or you might have watched a movie and the bad guy is so evil that you were pleased when he was killed. 

You might have watched a film loosely based on a true story, where the subject matter wasn't suitable for children but as an adult you could appreciate the fact that the movie was trying to make a statement and that a child might not have got the point of the movie.

The only thing I would say negative about movies and it is something that I hear that get on my nerves.  Movies do not represent reality; at best they have an element of truth but if you were to make a movie that is true to life, a lot of movies would be very boring. (postman anyone?)

 

What if I combined a great story, added some interactive visuals and wrapped it up with some engaging music; wouldn't that be great?

Wait a second; that sounds like a video game.

If the above formats are considered art, then surely video games must be considered art.

Video games are designed to take you out of the mundane existence that is life and puts you into a world that is completely different to the one you live in.

You want to be the best sports man ever; well, not a problem.  You want to be a general that has a army at your fingers; it's there too.  It allows you so much more of an experience than the other formats could offer and in a way is the next logical step.

The stories have a long way to go to compete with the best books that have been written, but this is due to the interactivity of the media.  You have to provide multiple versions of stories to take into account the fact that the gamer may not choose the route that you expected.

This form of art does have its faults though.  For example: In my opinion a game that pads itself out with the same levels with slightly different locations, or the RPG that demands that you level up incessantly to have a decent chance of killing the boss and gets you to pick up 5 of this or 7 of that really is annoying to me.

Simply put; if the rest are considered art; then video games are art as well.